Test strips, usually made of inert plastic or paper having a reagent absorbed on the strip surface for testing the presence or concentration of constituents of a body fluid are commonly used in medical diagnosis and treatment. For example, reagent strip testing of different conditions in urinalysis is used for measuring pH, sugar or glucose, protein, ketone bodies, bilirubin and urobilinogen, hemoglobin, and the like. The reagents on the strip are activated when the strip is exposed to the fluid and given sufficient time to develop, with the reagent developing a color or color intensity corresponding to the presence and/or concentration of the constituent present in the body fluid being tested. The use of such reagent test strips is especially beneficial for assisting the management of medication dosage or therapy for patients with chronic diseases, for example, in diabetics for monitoring blood glucose levels in managing insulin therapy, for monitoring urine glucose for screening gestational diabetes and for measuring proteins in toxemia detection during pregnancy.
A common method for reading a reagent paper color uses resealable vials having calibrated color areas on the exterior label corresponding to different concentration levels for the tested parameters. In another technique, the patient inserts the exposed reagent strip into an electronic colorimeter which converts the reagent paper color to a quantitative measurement of the parameter concentration. A disadvantage of such techniques is the requirement of the patient to record the measured information for later review by a clinician or physician. Moreover, patient compliance for punctual test performance and subsequent reporting is problematic. Often, patients forget to promptly take the test or record the test results accurately. Although electronic reagent color measuring devices, for example, Accu-Check II and Merlin produced by Boehringer-Mannheim Diagnostics provide for improved capture and storing of the reagent test readings, these devices measure only one parameter and thus are not useful for testing a plurality of parameters, which are provided on some reagent papers. Moreover, some electronic reagent color measuring devices require use of a calibration code for each vial of strips and if the code is misplaced, the entire vial of strips is rendered useless.